In a personal essay in The New York Times titled “Intolerance and Love in Jamaica,” the 23-year-old writer details a memory from growing up as a closeted gay teen from a small Texas town. He was visiting Jamaica for the first time for a family reunion and was weary of the country’s tolerance for the LGBT community.

“I’d heard stories about the situation for queer folks in Jamaica, but they were hard to put in perspective — I had nothing to compare them with. I lived in a small town in Texas. I’d have sooner set myself on fire than come out. I’d never seen a pair of gay people, and I had yet to find them in books, so the notion of a happy ending felt pretty amorphous. Like some pot at the end of this camouflage rainbow.”

During a family outing, they come across a happy gay couple on the beach. “It was warm to watch, like electricity, as if I’d seen the last dinosaurs,” Washington writes. But then, his uncle began to throw rocks at the couple and his aunt booed. Washington decided he would never come back.